Obesity and Pregnancy: focusing on healthy lifestyle and nutrition

Dr. Judith Smith

By Dr. Judith Smith

While we often hear obese individuals described as a “well nourished individual” to be kind, this description is not accurate.   There are many health reasons to encourage weight loss in an obese woman including decreasing long-term risk of developing type II diabetes, hypertension and cardiac diseases.   Obesity adds additional challenges pregnancy from the success of getting pregnant, risk of complications, and unborn baby’s health to consider.

Obesity not only decreases the efficacy of fertility treatment, it also increases the risk of miscarriages by up to three-times thus making it more of a challenge for obese women to successfully maintain a pregnancy.  There are some cases where weight loss alone may help improve chances of successfully conceiving a baby.  If afforded the opportunity to plan ahead, assuring that any chronic conditions such as hypertension or diabetes are well controlled is extremely beneficial to reduce pregnancy complications. Obesity during pregnancy has been associated with many complications such as preterm birth (before 37 weeks), pre-eclampsia (hypertensive crisis), gestational diabetes, low Apgar scores, and neonatal hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) that all may jeopardize the overall health and wellness of the newborn baby for a lifetime.

While weight loss during pregnancy is NOT encouraged, teaching obese pregnancy women how to make healthy lifestyle choices including good balanced diet, moderate exercise/activity level, and adequate sleep will help to minimize pregnancy risks.   Making these lifestyle changes during pregnancy will hopefully be sustained and lead to overall better health and promote weight loss after pregnancy.

Surprisingly, obese pregnant women are often found to have vitamin & mineral deficiencies, especially in folic acid, iron and calcium.  The addition of a good multivitamin such as AdvoCare CorePlex with Iron and AdvoCare CalciumPlus could be recommended to complement improvements in diet.  

While the goal, especially in obese pregnant women, is to minimize weight gain to between 11 to 20 pounds during pregnancy, it is still important to support fetal growth and development.  The AdvoCare Meal Replacement Shakes/Bars could be a good balanced source of protein/carbohydrates as well as vitamins and minerals for nutrition during pregnancy or both Mom and baby.  In addition, AdvoCare OmegaPlex can be added to help improve nutrition and health of Mom and support overall development of the fetus too. 

Another product that might be beneficial during pregnancy is AdvoCare Rehydrate because maintaining hydration is important to reduce the risk of pre-term labor.   In addition, the hydration may help give mom sense of “fullness” and reduce snacking on “calorie–dense” foods that have little nutritional value.

Obesity remains one of healthcare’s biggest challenges.  We often only focus on the risks of chronic conditions associated with obesity.    However, obesity can complicate what is supposed to be one of the most natural, joyful experiences in life – pregnancy.   In this case, obesity not only affecting mom’s health during pregnancy, it has the potential to impair health of the baby to be as well.   Sharing AdvoCare’s philosophy of healthy lifestyle choices and nutritional supplements may help offset of impact of obesity during pregnancy.

The Impact of Overeating on Body Composition

By Dr. Leanne M. Redman, Ph.D.

With the holiday season recently behind us many are embarking on New Year’s resolutions to shed those extra holiday pounds. While healthy eating may be part of our daily lives for 335 days of the year, everything we know and live by seems to fall by the wayside around the holidays. Most of us will overindulge in the traditional calorie-rich holiday foods that are customary to our culture. The question is, should we pay attention to where the extra 500-1,000 calories we are eating is coming from?

A collection of studies done over a 50 year period suggested that less weight is gained when individuals overeat a diet that contains either a low amount of protein (less than 5% of the total calories eaten) or a high amount of protein (more than 20% of the total calories eaten). This observation was recently tested in a randomized controlled trial at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Twenty-five young men and women overfed about 900 calories a day for 8 weeks. The participants ate 1 of 3 diets where the total calories from protein diets were either 5% (low amount), 15% (normal amount) or 25% (high amount). In this state-of-the-art study, participants lived at the Research Center for about 10 weeks so the changes in body weight, body fat and metabolic rate could be closely monitored and participants would be forced to refrain from exercising to burn off the excess calories.

Inline with the previous research, after the 8 week study individuals overeating the diet low in protein gained about 50% less weight (7 lb or 3.16 kg) compared to those eating the diet containing normal (13.3 lb or 6.05 kg) or high (13.5 lb or 6.17 kg) amount of protein.  The most interesting discovery was in how this body weight was gained. Using a unique kind of X-ray to measure body fat and muscle, or lean body mass, the researchers found that despite the differences in weight gain, all 3 diets caused participants to gain the same amount of body fat (7.1 lbs or 3.2 kg).  The discrepancy between weight gain then was due to the difference in the amount of body protein (or muscle) that was made.

This landmark study points out that people need to understand that the number on the scale does not necessarily provide all the information with regard to their health. Calories alone are important in controlling fat gain when overeating. Because body fat is the hallmark feature of obesity and a major risk factor for increasing health problems such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, obesity treatments should focus on reducing fatness rather than body weight per se.